________________
148 Harmless Souls The Tattvadīpikā on this begins as follows:
For nothing is eternal for the self which is other than the self) and which is, since any such thing is not distinct from other substances and is indeed separated from its qualities as it undergoes the influence of other substances, the basis of impurity. [It cannot be eternal) because being unreal-and-caused (asaddhetumattvena) it must have a beginning and an end in time, and because it is not self-established (parataḥ siddhatvāt). 52
The introduction of the term asat, the 'non-existent' or 'unreal', to describe everything that is other than the self (i.e. everything that is paradravya or ajīva, including material karman) is radical, and yet, given the fact that the instrument of bondage has been internalised and the self established as absolutely different from and untouched by the 'other', not unpredictable. In other words, for soteriological purposes (and perhaps ontologically too) samsāra, made up of matter, including material karman, may be treated as irrelevant. (And we may also note here that karman and bondage by karman, being non-eternal, are, in contrast to orthodox Jaina doctrine, assumed to have a beginning.)
Soteriological interest is now focused entirely upon the realisation of the eternally pure ātman, which is the one way of destroying the bondage of moha. As the next gāthā (Pravacanasāra 2.102) puts it:
He who, knowing this, meditates with purified self on the paramātman (or 'the self and the other'], with formed or formless 'thought', destroys the tight knot of delusion.
52 ātmano hi paradravyāvibhāgena paradravyoparajyamānasvadharmavibhāgena cāśuddhatvanibandhanam na kimcanāpy anyad asaddhetumattvenādyantatvāt parataḥ siddhatvāc ca dhruvam asti - TD on Pravac. 2:101.
I owe the translation to Alexis Sanderson's interpretation of this passage and the TD. on Pravac. 2:100.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
